


She Don’t Comprehend

by chicafrom3



Category: Firefly
Genre: Character Study, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Mental Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-17
Updated: 2006-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 03:49:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicafrom3/pseuds/chicafrom3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, she doesn't understand them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Don’t Comprehend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nikiness](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=nikiness).



Jayne doesn’t dance, he says, and she tilts her head and says, then River doesn’t fight, and so he consents to put his arms around her and let her push him through the steps.

Jayne ain’t a girl, he says, and she smiles and says, I know, and they dance through the night.

He thinks she doesn’t know that he likes it when she dances. He thinks he hides it behind his gruff dismissals and the way he rolls over in bed to face the other side of the room. But she knows him better, and she knows he loves it when she’s in the mood to dance, even if he barely ever dances with her.

She dances because she needs to, not because he loves it.

She needs it because he loves it.

Sometimes she doesn’t understand herself.

* * *

  


You’re prettier’n Vera, he mutters in her ear one night, and the next day he flips out when he finds her taking one of his smaller guns apart.

Wasn’t Vera, she protested, would never hurt Vera, but he doesn’t listen, and they don’t talk for the rest of the day.

Ruttin’ gun-obsessed hwoon dahn, she tells Simon, and sulks in the cockpit.

She peeks in his quarters later that night and sees him crying over the broken gun pieces.

He hugs her in the morning and mutters something, and she brings the pieces to Kaylee to fix, ’cause Kaylee can fix anything.

But he ignores the fixed weapon.

Sometimes she doesn’t understand him.

* * *

  


He thinks he loves her.

She thinks that might be true.

He calls her gorram moon-brained girl, and she knows he means it, and she knows he means it when he whispers _love ya, baobei_ in the middle of the night.

She calls him an untrained baboon, and she knows she means it, and she knows she means it when she whispers _love you too_ while she lies next to him.

Sometimes she doesn’t understand them.

* * *

  


She dances and he cleans his guns.

She reads him with more ease than he’s comfortable with, and he sees her with eyes she doesn’t understand.

But she likes the way he sees her. He thinks she’s beautiful, he thinks she’s a woman, he thinks that no power in the ’verse can stop her and he’s the only one she’s come across who sees her like that.

She knows he’s not as stupid as most everyone thinks, and she knows how he hates not being able to put into words what he thinks, and she knows that he loves deep and passionate, and she knows that he doesn’t really understand how she feels but trusts it anyway.

They hold each other while they sleep, and she’s teaching him how to dance.

Sometimes they make perfect sense.


End file.
